Rivers of living water

Whoa.

Whoa.

Whoa. 

Last night was so crazy. God seriously just wrecked me with his love and presence in ways I don't think I've ever experienced before. 

Yesterday (Friday) was a really relaxing day. I'm quickly realizing that weekends are my favorite part of time here. Class is good and I've been learning, but the week is so long and exhausting for me. I'm really blessed to be able to have so much time and freedom on the weekends to spend with God, friends, catching up with family, going to the beach, going out to eat or catching up on chores or whatever! And not to mention I feel like God has been speaking to me the most through my personal time with him and through others more than class or the speakers or anything else. 

Yesterday afternoon I went to lunch with some girls from my house. We found a restaurant with pizza!! The pizza wasn't anything special, but it was pizza and we had a very chill time, with a beautiful view and we ate a lot! Haha. Walking back we saw probably one of the most beautiful sunsets if not the beautiful sunset I've ever seen. Pictures of course. When I see stuff like that my heart feels like it's going to explode sometimes. It makes me want to jump and shout and run around. It's so crazy amazing how beautiful God is. One of my friends could tell how much I was geeking out and she said, "God is just romancing you! He's so romantic!" And I realized how right she was. He really has been capturing my heart in so many ways, one of which is his beauty in creation. I can't explain how it makes me feel. I said multiple times, "aaaagh! I just can't handle it!" I feel so incredibly blessed to be in such beauty.

When we got back from dinner I went to sit on the back porch with some of my house mates. After chatting for awhile someone suggested playing a "prophetic game" At first I was extremely skeptical and I've heard people talk about them before and felt like it could easily be fake and forced. And another reason I was freaked out is because I haven't walked in the prophetic much and feel like I have a hard time hearing from God and getting pictures, words, etc. I thought about telling them that I didn't have that gift and I'd never done that before but I decided to just roll with it and told God "ok, if you want to speak to me, here I am. I'm not gonna make excuses or say I can't hear from you." The game was picking a category and then praying and asking God for words or pictures related to it for one of the people in the group. We did feet, like direction, asking God where there feet were going. I just went with it and asked God to speak to me. I got a picture for every person on their turn. Some of them I didn't feel like connected much or were necessarily from God but it was crazy to see how some of them hit the nail on the head and really impacted the people I gave them. It was extremely humbling. When it was my turn to receive words I got so many that were meaningful to me. Some of them I have to take with a grain of salt but some of them were just really encouraging and powerful. I've been learning here that the Holy Spirit is so much more simple than I thought. I've always tried to make it logical and super spiritual. But sometimes it's not. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it is, but sometimes it's just realizing that God made your mouth, he made your mind, he made your eyes, ears and emotions, so why can't he speak to you and use your thoughts? I'm realizing he usually speaks to me very gently. I'm learning, I feel like a baby crawling, but I'm relying on God to teach me and use me to and flow through me more and more. 

As we were on the porch prophesying and encouraging each other we saw people filling up buckets at the spicket behind our house, which meant.... THE WATER WAS ON!!! (Unfortunately by the next morning it wasn't. But it was good while it lasted) as the water was running their were a few staff members who I think were just chatting over there but then they started praying. I think maybe they were praying over the water and prophetically speaking streams of living water and revival to flow. Soon they started manifesting the Holy Spirit and laughing and all this crazy stuff. We were getting really distracted from our game on our porch seeing it all unfold. As it continued, people would walk by and be drawn to it and the Holy Spirit started touching other people. The group of people standing by the water kept growing and growing and people were laughing and falling down, and all kinda crazy stuff I probably would have been freaked out by a few years ago. Something God really emphasizes here is joy. All the missionaries are so dependent on the joy of The Lord for their strength and he definitely pours it out! Once we finished our time on the porch we all went over to see what was going on. I secretly just wanted whatever they had, I wanted in on what God was doing. The funniest thing I saw was one guy fell out in the spirit and he was laying in the dirt with a dazed face laughing and making dirt angels. Lol. Ok, I've probably lost some followers by now thinking this is psycho. I've felt that way before but I keep going back to Acts where people thought people were drunk when the Holy Spirit fell on them. And let me tell you, that is EXACTLY how it is. Seeing some people's reactions just makes me laugh. They literally seemed so wasted. 

I've never experienced that before and I've always told myself something's wrong with me or that God doesn't want me to experience him in those ways. But last night I got a taste of it. I made my way into the group and a couple of my friends were shaking and laughing and crazy stuff, and they came over to me and one girl said "I just want to pray for you, don't feel any pressure." But shortly after they started praying i felt kind of like some shock waves going through my body and started laughing and basically collapsed. It was crazy. Again it was more simple and gentle than I expected but it was just a huge revelation last night everything that happened like "ok God. All the lies I've believed about me not being able to receive or experience you in those ways broke off and I feel so much freedom, like now I can actually believe for those things in my life." It was very freeing just like a big sigh kind of, weight off my shoulders like "ok, now I'm just ready for all of it. And I know I can receive it."  So let's just say I'm SO excited for the more I know He has for me!!! Let's go!

And... That wasn't even close to the end of it. 

After the Holy Ghost party was kind of breaking up, I was talking with one of my housemates and 3 others I didn't really know. They were sharing some and encouraging each other and when we were about to go to bed, one guy asked if they could pray for me. I said yes, so the four of them gathered around and prayed for me and it was CRAZY! That's the word for the day I guess. Haha. Pretty much everything they prayed was so right on. And 3 of them didn't even know me! God brought up so much about me, my past, pain and hurt and things I've dealt with, insecurities, lies and all kinds of stuff. I cried so hard. It was kind of painful but so cleansing and releasing too. They all poured out God's love on me and spoke so much over my life. I can't even go into all of it because it was so deep and I think a lot of it needs to stay between me and God but I just knew his love so deep last night when I went to bed. Like wow. God basically sent strangers to come and love me and pour out God's love, to encourage me, bring healing, bring community and so much to me. I'm still just shaking my like "Jesus, you really really really love me!" I pray that all of you would know his love like that! 

I can't explain how I feel. I feel so much freedom and joy and peace. And just a lightness, like God's taken pain and fear and lies and just filled me up with him. 

I'm sitting here using the wifi for an hour and it sounds like some craziness is breaking out again, so tonight could be interesting. Haha.

So that's my post for today. I'm quite sure yesterday was my favorite day so far. I can't wait to see what else God has in store!